Jun 30, 2014

It looks like Nokia, or what’s left of the Finnish company, has serious plans regarding Android and its camera technologies. We’re not yet sure what this is all about, but since the company has launched the test version of Z Launcher for Android devices, it appears that it is working to bring software solution to users rather than hardware.

Well, that could be a slightly wrong assumption, as Nokia is now looking for a senior engineer who would be able to design and implement drivers for different camera solutions on a variety of platforms. The job posting has recently been spotted by NokiaPowerUser on LinkedIn, but this is not the only hint that we got in the last couple of weeks that makes us believe that Nokia is working on something related to camera technology and Android. Furthermore, the new job post also shows that Nokia is taking into consideration bringing this stuff it’s now working on to more platforms, other than Android, as well. Here is what the job description posted on LinkedIn says: “We are looking for passionate camera driver engineer with an eye for quality and understanding of camera software from low level drivers towards the end user applications.

The person we are looking for will take responsibility of designing and implementation of camera drivers for different camera solutions on variety of platforms.” But this is not all, as Nokia wants a senior engineer who has solid experience on Linux kernel driver development and knowledge of flash drivers. There’s also a list of desired skills for the job, which clearly hints at something Android-related:

Android development experience;

Experience on driver development for MIPI raw camera sensors;

Knowledge of autofocus, optical image stabilization and other peripheral drivers is a plus;

Understanding of driver level enablers for imaging algorithms and tunings;

Experience on Camera production testing and sensor calibration;

Theoretical background on imaging.

In light of the new details, we suspect that Nokia is now working to bring a new set of utilities in the camera technology, which will be offered to users on all mobile platforms. However, we can safely assume that this hardware / software solution will be released initially on Android, as Nokia seems to be pushing the development for its product on this platform in particular. Unfortunately, there’s no telling when exactly Nokia will go official with its plans regarding the camera technology, but we should expect an announcement in the next couple of months.